To Love Again
by CharlieSwagron
Summary: "You make me want to love again. It was a simple phrase, uttered by a dying, half-delusional man at the time. But to her, it made her heart jump." Tex/Rachel after episode 9 "Trials"


**A/N: Who saw tonight's episode of The Last Ship? Wasn't it just freaking awesome?! Right now, I swing either way between Tex/Rachel and Chandler/Rachel, but tonight definitely had me leaning towards Tex.**

_You make me want to love again._

It was a simple phrase, uttered by a dying, half-delusional man at the time. But to her, it made her heart jump.

Rachel studied the five remaining brave souls later that night as they slept. The cure might've taken affect already, but it was still better to be safe and keep them in the quarantined zone for another day.

She was all alone. Doctor Rios had retired a couple hours ago and she had all but forced Quincy to get some sleep. Chandler and Slattery sleeping as well, only leaving after Rachel had insisted that she would watch over the others. Having the most experience with this, she had told them that it would be much easier for her to spot it if something suddenly went wrong.

Of course, that was only half of the truth. In reality, she would never be able to get any rest tonight without hearing Tex's words ringing in her ears.

_ You make me want to love again._

It had caught her completely off guard. It wasn't a big secret that Tex had a little—okay, giant—crush on her; the entire crew knew it and it wasn't like he kept it to himself.

At first, she'd found his advances somewhat off-putting. He was so different from her and it seemed like they would never have anything in common. After a while, though, she found that he could be quite useful. His talent for putting a smile on her face or making her laugh in the toughest of times never failed. He was one of the first people to actually make an effort to reach out to her on the ship and try to be her…friend.

Friend. The word was practically foreign to Rachel. Growing up, she'd always been more of an outcast, choosing to focus on her studies rather than hang out with her peers. Her adult life was much the same; she never really had relationships that lasted longer than a couple weeks at the most. The men who entered her life never really understood her devotion to her work and why she would prefer to be at a lab than at home.

There was one man, however, who'd stuck around for far longer than the rest. Their relationship had been great and Rachel had actually found herself enjoying his company even outside the bed.

But then the virus happened. And with it, came the destruction of their relationship. Her obsession with the disease brought her all across the globe, places that he could not follow nor wanted to. Rachel had loved him, of that she was certain. But he hadn't loved her. He cheated on her.

Their breakup devastated her. The one man she'd opened herself up to and loved had broken her trust as well as her heart. They'd parted ways on horrible terms as he left her for another. And a little while later when the virus was still relatively new, she saw him in one of the many quarantine tents sent up. He apologized and she'd forgiven him. There was nothing else she could do for him and her heart shattered once more as the light drained from his eyes.

She'd guarded her heart after that, as carefully as she could. With a world full of dying people, there was really no time to fall in love again. They would just end up leaving her like the last one did. But then they brought back Tex.

Their tentative friendship was definitely a peculiar one that the rest of the crew gossiped about. Dr. Scott was known on the ship for being anti-social and not really one to reach out for companionship. But Tex seemed to bring out a side of her they never really saw. She smiled and laughed and tossed jokes back and forth with him. Every night, they would usually take dinner together and watch a movie or two if the doc wasn't busy trying to save the world.

Shaken from her thoughts momentarily by Tex rolling onto his back in his sleep, Rachel smiled softly and shook her head as he let out a loud snore before settling down.

_ You make me want to love again._

Walking into the tent, Rachel sat down in a small chair that was set beside Tex's cot. She still wore her biohazard suit just as a slight precaution. Studying the man, she felt small flutters in her stomach. Out of all those asleep on their cots just then, she was most grateful that Tex had pulled through. When he'd volunteered, she had almost immediately rejected him, but Quincy was the one who let him through. The argument that she just couldn't lose him wasn't exactly the greatest one for leaving him out of the trials.

He was her friend—probably her best friend—and the thought of him dying was not one she wanted to have.

Almost hesitantly, Rachel reached out her gloved hand and placed it in one of his.

_ You make me want to love again._

_ You make me want to love again._

"You make me want to love again too," she whispered.

She would've sworn that he gently squeezed her hand in response.

**A/N: Thank you for reading this and please feel free to let me know what you thought. There are definitely not enough fanfics for The Last Ship and I hope to try to remedy that sometime in the future. If there's a specific thing that you'd like to see between either Tex/Rachel or Chandler/Rachel, let me know and I'll see if I can find the time to write it. No definite guarantees because I just started freshman year at college and I'll be swamped with work soon. Thanks again for reading!**


End file.
